


A Glimpse Beneath the Mask

by miss_slothrop



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship, Canon-Typical Violence, Covid-19 pandemic, Covidiots, Gen, Hate Crimes, Pre-teen Tina, Racism, Teen Gavin, Violence Toward a Minor, present-day setting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:53:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24293152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_slothrop/pseuds/miss_slothrop
Summary: CW: Racially-motivated violenceThe year is 2020 and 11-year-old Tina Chen just can't stay inside anymore.  After sneaking out to buy candy from the local convenience store, Tina has a run-in with a pair of malicious older teens bent on hurting the people they hold responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic.  Things go very badly for little Tina until her neighbor who she barely knows, 17-year-old Gavin Reed, shows up on the scene.
Relationships: Tina Chen & Gavin Reed
Comments: 3
Kudos: 13





	A Glimpse Beneath the Mask

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, everybody! I'm back! I felt totally uninspired to write since my last upload until this thing plonked me on the head this past weekend. I'm not really sure where it came from, but I got it finished in record time (not hard, since I'm on indefinite furlough from my day job...). Many thanks to my beta readers ShyBunny and TheRothwoman! They have great works, too, so check out their pages!

The only thought on Tina Chen’s mind as she stood in the tape-marked line at the convenience store with her pack of gummi candies in her hand was ‘Success!’ Getting out of her family’s apartment had been easier than she’d expected; her big sister Jill was absorbed in her latest video game obsession and was loudly barking orders into her headset while she and her friends online took down a raid boss when Tina had slipped past to open and close the front door with only a couple of faint creaks. After that it was a cinch to get to the elevator and outside, a five-dollar bill in her jeans pocket and her blue polka-dot mask over her face. Staying inside all day was driving Tina completely batty and she missed her newly-gained independence.

Starting on her eleventh birthday in January her parents had allowed her to walk to the store at the end of their block all by herself and it had been like opening the door to a brand new life. She’d proudly exercised her new privilege every weekend for a full two months before it was ripped away without warning in the middle of March. Going outside was suddenly dangerous for everyone, she’d learned, though her mom and dad still had jobs to do at the supermarket and the warehouse. She hoped they wouldn’t find out what she was doing out here, but Tina was smart. She’d come in unnoticed, hide the candy, hang her mask on her bedroom doorknob like always and wash her hands like her mom had showed her. No harm done, right?

It was finally her turn in line and Tina strutted up to the counter with determination in her eyes. The clerk towered over her behind his own mask and the sheet of thick plastic that Tina didn’t remember spanning the length of the counter and leaving only a small window to place her item and money in front of the man.

“Okay,” said the clerk, just staring at Tina for a moment. “Does your mom know you’re here, kid?”

“Shhhh,” said Tina, hovering a finger in front of her masked face. “It’s a secret.”

“Right,” said the clerk. He sighed hard enough to inflate the front of his mask for a second, but he still took Tina’s bill in his gloved hand and rang up her purchase, setting her change on the counter next to the candy. Before Tina could take it, the clerk placed his hand gently on top of it. “When you take that money home,” he said, “just leave it somewhere where you won’t touch it for a few days. Then wash your hands for twenty seconds. Do you understand?”

“You sound like my dad,” said Tina, brows furrowed.

The clerk chuckled. “Stay safe out there, girl.” He released Tina’s change and she scooped everything of hers off the counter. Shoving the money and the bag of candy into her pocket she practically ran for the door and skipped out into the gloomy afternoon. Now it was time for the return journey, which she hoped would be just as easy as leaving. The block Tina’s family lived on in their four-story apartment building wasn’t that big, but in the light of the overcast day it seemed to stretch on in endless gray as Tina plotted her way back inside without her sister Jill noticing. Hopefully Jill was still fighting the crazy monster Tina had seen on the TV screen when she left. So absorbed in her planning, Tina didn’t notice the two teenage boys walking in the opposite direction and shoulder-checked one of them in the ribs as they passed each other.

“Hey!” he shouted, wheeling around.

“Sorry!” said Tina, her voice high and tiny. She started toward home again, but the boy she’d bumped into grabbed her arm and squeezed, yanking her back toward him.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he said, his tone filled with venom.

“Home!” Tina squeaked, pulling against his grip. “It’s right down there! Let go!”

“Home?” said the other boy, taking a step closer so he loomed over her. Neither of these boys was wearing a mask and Tina could feel this one’s breath on her forehead as he spoke. “Last I checked this was Detroit, not China.”

“You think this one’s infected?” said the boy holding Tina’s arm. Tina looked furiously between them, her blood running cold.

“Gotta be,” said the other one, bending at the knee to bring himself closer to Tina as she started to shiver. “I bet that’s how they spread it. Get all their little brats sick and tell them to touch everything they see.”

“Let me go!” cried Tina, trying to yank herself away with her legs and the weight of her body. “I’m not sick! I just wanna go home!”

“No,” said the boy holding her, tightening his grip. Tina gritted her teeth under her mask at the pain. “It’s pieces of shit like you who put my dad in the hospital. You think I’m just gonna let that slide?”

“I didn’t do anything!” Tina’s vision blurred as the tears started. “And if he’s sick then _you’re_ the one who could have it!”

“What’d you say?!” barked the other boy.

“You think so, you little turd?” said the boy holding Tina. “Does that scare you?”

“You…you _let me go!_ ” Tina screamed, trying to yank away again, but her foot slipped under her and she lost her balance. The boy holding her pulled her up against him, ripped her mask off her face with his other hand and coughed directly up her nose with as much noise as he could make.

“How do you like that, shitstain?!” he yelled, tossing her backward. Tina stumbled and fell back with a shrill scream, hitting the pavement hard. She still couldn’t see and the impact had jarred her enough that she couldn’t move, the world swimming around her.

“Guess you don’t need _this_ anymore,” said the boy who’d been holding her. Tina heard something soft plop onto the street beside her, only able to guess that it was her mask. “You think you can just walk around out here like this town is yours, bitch? I’ll show you whose town this is!” Fueled by her fear, Tina managed to scramble away from where she could hear the boy’s voice, but she didn’t get far before a hand closed around her ankle and dragged her back across the sidewalk. The rough parts of the concrete bit into the skin of her arm and back and Tina screamed as she flailed her arms in front of her face in a desperate attempt at self-defense.

“HELP!” she hollered. “HELP ME! SOMEBODY HELP! THEY’RE HURTING ME!” Her hand connected with something and was immediately pinned to the ground as something else struck her across the face.

“Shut your mouth, bitch!” hissed the first boy. “Shut up!” A hand pressed down against Tina’s throat and her screams cut off with a squawk. She tried to kick her legs, swing her free arm, do anything else, but the hand didn’t budge. Another weight restrained her legs and the arm behind the hand on her neck settled onto her chest. Everything outside Tina seemed to constrict, melting down toward her and walling her in. She could barely breathe. She could barely move. Trying to do either seemed more and more meaningless as the seconds crawled on.

“Hey!” A new voice, distant as though Tina could hear it through a glass window, sounded just beyond the top of her head. There was a whoosh of air across her face and all the pressure on her body was gone. Tina’s eyes threw themselves open and she saw the boy who’d been holding her down on the ground a few feet away, flopped over on one side with blood pouring from both nostrils. She wasted no time in crawling away, her entire frame vibrating with her desperation. “Stay still,” said the new voice. “You could be hurt worse than you think.” Tina said nothing, but curled herself into a tight ball, arms over her head covering her ears.

“Who the fuck are you?!” said the faint, muffled voice of the second boy. The new voice replied, but Tina couldn’t make out the words. Through her still-blurred vision she could just barely distinguish the figure of the second boy rushing the newcomer. Tina didn’t want to see any more. She snapped her eyelids shut and brought her knees closer to her nose as her wails finally began, wet trails coating her cheeks and lips as she cried. She didn’t know how long she stayed like that, but after what seemed like forever she couldn’t scream anymore. Slowly she opened her eyes, her lashes fused together by the tears, and saw the new boy who had spoken to her like an ally kicking one of the first two boys in the behind as they ran from him. She lifted one arm away from her head as she started to uncurl.

“Yeah, that’s right, motherfuckers!” shouted the new boy. He pulled a black-and-white striped mask up over his face and turned to walk toward Tina, who had lifted her head up to look at him. He wasn’t especially tall, but he looked about as strong as the other boys had. He had dark hair and light skin. At first he didn’t seem familiar at all, but then he looked her directly in the eye and something connected in her mind.

“Hey,” she said, “I know you. You live down the hall. You go to school with Jill.”

“Yeah,” said the new boy, “that’s me. You’re Tina, right?” Tina nodded. “Don’t move too quickly,” the boy continued. “I need to see how bad it is. I’m gonna need to touch you. Is that okay?”

Tina hesitated. “We can’t touch other people. We could get sick.”

“Yeah,” said the boy, “but this is an emergency. I worked at the pool as a lifeguard last summer. I know first aid. I can help you.”

Tina’s lip trembled as she broke eye contact. “O-okay.”

“Just relax,” said the boy, kneeling before her and slowly holding his hands out until they gently closed on the back of Tina’s head. “Tell me if anything hurts. Even a little. Okay?” Tina nodded and brought herself somewhat more upright. The boy moved his hands down from her head to her shoulders very slowly and gently, applying slight pressure as he moved them. “Let’s check your arms,” he said, and Tina lifted each arm up one at a time for the boy to examine in the same way. “You got scraped up pretty good,” he said, “but that’s nothing soap and water can’t help. That bruise, though.” His finger rested on Tina’s upper arm where the first boy had held onto her so tightly. “You’re gonna wanna rub your fingers against that every day until it goes away. Does it hurt?” He pushed against it lightly and Tina’s eyes twitched. “Okay, no bones broken, but that shithead burst a few blood vessels.” He took his hands off her arms and moved them down her midsection, applying the same careful pressure, and Tina felt her breathing even out. “Can I check your legs?” Tina bent them at the knee so he could see them better. “Nothing broken here, either,” said the boy after he checked them, “but you’ve got a few more scrapes under that shirt, looks like. Fucking assholes. Can you try to stand up?” Tina tried to move her feet under her, but her legs wobbled and she stopped. “Take your time,” said the boy. Tina took a deep breath, her chest aching, and tried again, getting unsteadily to her feet.

“My chest hurts,” she said. “And my neck.”

“Let me see,” said the boy. “Look up at the sky.” Tina tilted her head back, grimacing in discomfort. “Shit,” the boy spat. “Fucking animals. Come on, let’s get you home. Oh, and I think this is yours.” He reached into his back pocket and took out Tina’s mask, covered in dirt from the road.

“Eew,” she said when she saw it.

“Run it through the wash,” said the boy. “That’s what the cloth ones are for.” Tina took her mask from him, but didn’t put it on. The boy sighed and stood up to his full height. Tina almost came up to his chest by comparison.

“What happened?” said Tina. “How’d you get those guys to leave me alone?”

The boy sniffled. “Well you see, the thing about pissbabies like them is that they don’t know how to fight a guy their own size. The jackass on top of you couldn’t even handle one foot to the face.” Tina thought of the image she’d seen, the boy who’d been hurting her on the ground with blood coating his lips and chin.

“Did they hurt you, too?” she asked. “There were two of them and only one of you.”

“Yeah there were,” said the boy, “but only one of us really knew how to fight.” His eyes were smiling above his mask, but now Tina could see that the skin around one of them looked red and was starting to swell. He sniffled again and stopped walking. “Just a minute,” he said, and turned away from Tina. She could see him pull down his mask and hold a hand in front of his face as he snorted, a little spatter of red hitting the sidewalk below him.

“You’re bleeding!”

“I’ve had worse,” said the boy, pulling his mask back up as he turned around. His airway-clearing had also splattered onto the front of his mask, a thin line of orangey-red across one of the white stripes. “I’ll put ice on it.” Tina frowned, but said nothing more about it as she looked at the sidewalk in front of her.

“What’s your name?” she asked instead.

“Gavin,” said the boy.

“My sister talks about you sometimes.”

“Oh?” said Gavin. “What does she say?”

“She hates your guts.”

“Tch.” Gavin crossed his arms as he walked. “Tell her to get in line.”

Tina pursed her lips. “You graduated this year, too, right?”

“Yeah,” said Gavin.

“What are you gonna do next? My sister got into like five schools. I think she picked Tulane.”

“Good for her,” said Gavin. “As for me, as long as the Police Academy is still running this fall I’m gonna learn how to be a cop.”

“Ooh!” said Tina. “You _should_ be a cop.”

“You think so, too?” said Gavin.

“Yeah,” said Tina. “Cops fight bad guys. That’s what you just did.”

Gavin chuckled. “Right.”

“So if you wanna be a cop,” said Tina, “how come so many people hate your guts?”

“Dunno,” said Gavin, looking off in front of him. “I guess I just don’t fit into their fucking narrow definition of what success looks like.”

“Maybe more people would like you if you didn’t use so many bad words.”

Gavin burst out laughing, throwing his head back and clapping his hands. “That’s a new one. Trust me, kid, those words aren’t bad anymore when you get to be my age.”

“Jill still gets in trouble for using them,” said Tina.

“Well then your parents are just hard-asses.”

“Heeeey!” Tina pouted at Gavin, but it only got him to laugh more. They were closing in on their shared building finally and Tina couldn’t wait to get inside, whether or not anyone saw her. She reached back and felt the bag of candy still there, though far flatter than it had been when she bought it. In the next second she remembered what the clerk at the store had said and whipped her hand away, but she had to wash much more than just her hands when she got home now.

“So what do you want to be when _you_ grow up?” asked Gavin. The question took Tina by utter surprise.

“Uh, I don’t know.” The words left Tina before she had the chance to really think about them. Up until right now she’d always had an answer. A singer, maybe. A fashion designer. A graphic artist. Now all of those things felt wrong for her and Tina couldn’t tell why or what had changed.

Gavin shrugged. “Eh, you’ve got plenty of time to think about it.”

“Yeah,” said Tina almost automatically. “Yeah I do.” _I almost didn’t,_ she thought. That boy had been strangling her, pushing all the air out of her chest to stop her screams. She could still feel a little soreness when she swallowed. If Gavin hadn’t been there, thought Tina, her life might have ended on this stretch of sidewalk just a few feet from her home. Her breath hitched in her chest and her vision was blurred by tears again. She stopped in her tracks as she sobbed, trying to wipe her cheeks clean.

“Whoa, stop that,” said Gavin. “Try not to touch your face. Uh, here.” When Tina was able to open her eyes again there was a little pack of tissues in front of her in Gavin’s hands. He was holding it open so she could take one without touching anything else. She grabbed a tissue and started wiping her face down like she was polishing it. “There you go.”

“Thanks,” said Tina. She sniffled and opened up the tissue to blow her nose. “Hey wait. You had these and you didn’t use one to stop your nosebleed?”

“Uh…” Gavin began, looking off to one side, “I kinda forgot I had these until just now. Pretty sure the bleeding’s stopped, but that might still be a good idea.” He turned away again. “Don’t look. This is probably gonna be pretty nasty.” Pulling a tissue from the pack, Gavin lowered his mask again and Tina could see that part of his face in profile. The bridge of his nose was remarkably thick for a boy her sister’s age and she could just see the faint dusting of facial hair growing in on his upper lip and cheek. What little beard he had was unkempt and misshapen. Then, just as quickly, Tina’s view of his face was covered up by the tissue. Gavin blew into it and groaned. “Fuck, that hurt.”

“You may need more than ice,” said Tina. “Just saying.”

Gavin took the tissue away from his face and hiked his mask back up. “And you may need to shut the fuck up. Just saying.” Tina snorted and giggled, a reaction that surprised even her. Now they were in front of the apartment building and someone was coming toward them. Tina looked straight ahead and saw that it was Jill, her mask askew as she ran to her.

“Tina! Holy shit, Tina!” Jill dropped to her knees and hugged her sister, nearly knocking her off her feet. “Where the hell have you been?! I was gonna call the cops!”

“You might still wanna call the cops,” said Gavin. “Your kid sister’s been the victim of a hate crime.”

Jill jerked her head up at him. “What?”

“Two boys,” said Tina. “They hurt me.”

“What?!”

“We should talk about this inside,” said Gavin. “Tell you what. I’ll call the cops right now and show them to the scene of the crime while you get Tina cleaned up.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and fiddled with it.

“Y-yeah,” said Jill, finally releasing Tina and standing back up. “Come on, Tina.” She held a hand out to her and Tina took it.

“You’re a shit babysitter, you know,” said Gavin, his phone up to his ear.

“Fuck off!” Jill snapped, pulling Tina along behind her as she strode away. Tina shot him an angry look, but Gavin just clicked his tongue and did something with his eyes that Tina guessed was supposed to be a wink that flopped. In the next instant she and Jill were through the door into the building and Gavin was on the phone with a 911 operator.

Jill didn’t slow down until the two of them were upstairs and inside their own apartment. From there she ran a bath for Tina, who just sat still on top of the covered toilet watching the tub fill up without a word. Tina washed her own wounds once she was in the water, but Jill refused to let her out of her sight for even a second. On some level Tina hated it like she hated anything that made her feel like she couldn’t handle it herself, but that sentiment was pushed into the background by the comforting knowledge that her big sister was there and nothing else could hurt her today.

Tina stopped lathering up the spot on her back that stung under the soap and sighed. The whole situation had been something she couldn’t handle on her own. Again it hit her in a chilling wave that she might have almost died today. Her life had been in the hands of other people, first the two boys who had almost taken it for not knowing their own strength and then Gavin who had saved it. Tina herself hadn’t been able to do a single thing about it. She felt herself on the verge of crying again, but held her breath for a second despite her body’s protest and got it under control.

“Jill?”

“What is it?” Her sister was there instantaneously.

“They teach cops how to fight, right?”

“Uh, yeah?” Jill raised an eyebrow. “I think so. Why?”

Tina shrugged and looked away. “I think I wanna be one when I grow up.”

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to make sure that this story didn't come out as needlessly melodramatic as the source material, but I'm still not sure if I succeeded or not. You can be the judge of that.


End file.
